OVACIK, Turkey — The drive into Communist Turkey is by a picturesque mountain road along the river Munzur. From the capital, Tunceli, it is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) to Ovacik, mainly uphill. At the village entrance, you are greeted by the Turkish national colors with "Welcome to Ovacik." Next to it is the blue village sign with the number of inhabitants: 3,700.

Fatih Macoglu is one of them and, since March 30, their mayor. He is from a nearby village, but has spent many of the past years working in other cities, such as Konya and Bingol. Before moving back to Ovacik, he worked as a civil servant in the state hospital in Tunceli. On Nov. 29, 2013, Macoglu submitted his candidacy for mayor of Ovacik and won, running as the candidate of the Communist Party of Turkey, or TKP. Macoglu is the first officially Communist mayor in Turkey's history. The vote was close. Out of the 1,812 votes cast, the TKP got 655 (36%), the Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) 608 (33.4 %) and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) 228 (15.4%).

Macoglu election victory rests on the coordination of leftist candidates by the Federation of Democratic Rights (DHF), an association founded in 2002, with deep roots in Dersim province. On its own, the TKP could not have managed this victory. The Communist Party has only existed under this name since 2001. Before that, the word "communist" was forbidden. Its predecessor, founded in 1992, was called the Party for Socialist Power. Since 2002, the TKP has participated in all national and municipal elections. The best results so far were the parliamentary elections in 2007 when the party got 0.23% (80,092 votes). In 2013, the TKP had 2,247 members.

"At the municipal elections in 2009, the DHF had mayoral candidates for the district cities Mazgirt and Hozat; in 2014 Ovacik was added," Macoglu said in his new office in the municipality. The DHF does not only run candidates from the TKP. In Mazgirt their candidate ran for the also tiny Marxist Freedom and Solidarity Party, or ODP.